Don’t Tell Mummy (11 page)

A
dded to my anxiety at leaving Cooldaragh was the fact that my mother had told me I was not going to live with them when we moved. Instead, I was going to be sent to stay with my godmother in Tenterden. Arrangements had already been made for me to attend the local school there. Even though she assured me that this was only a temporary arrangement, until she and my father found a house for all of us, I felt I was going to be abandoned. Family life might have been terrible, but being handed over to the care of strangers was even more frightening.

Far from being upset at the prospect of being parted from me, my mother only seemed to be tearful at having to find a home for Bruno, her favourite dog. He was to go to the South of Ireland, where Mrs Giveen’s daughter lived.

To add to my grief, my parents decided that Sally, even though she was happy with us, was to be put to sleep. Patiently, my mother explained to me that the little dog had never recovered from her early life. She had started to have fits, and it would be unfair to re-home her.

Tearfully I asked about Judy and the cats. The cats were to stay at Cooldaragh, while Judy was to board with a nearby farmer until we were all settled.

I felt devastated to be leaving Cooldaragh and the only school I had been happy at. I felt my whole life had gone as I said my tearful goodbyes to the animals. The first was to Bruno, who cheerfully went off in his new mistress’s car. I stood at the end of the drive watching the car disappear, hoping he would be as loved by them as he had been by me.

The second and harder goodbye was to Sally. What felt like unbearable grief nearly overwhelmed me when, thinking she was going for an outing, she trustingly jumped into my father’s car. I reached through the window to stroke her for the last time, trying not to let her see the tears that threatened to choke me. I knew she was being sent on her last journey to the vet’s because my father had informed me of the fact that day.

I remember the pain I felt, and wonder why a man who was such an accomplished liar had to tell the truth that day. I had to face that the truth had also come from my mother. What would one white lie to protect me have mattered then, when our whole family life was built on lies? Although my mother tried to comfort me, she couldn’t make me feel any better. I felt I had sent one of my friends to her death.

Over the next few weeks I helped my mother pack the tea chests again and packed my case for my stay with my godmother, of whom I had no memory at all. Because I was only allowed one small case, some of my treasured possessions had to go, Jumbo being the first casualty.

A few days before we were due to depart all our belongings were collected to go into storage. The following day my father took Judy to the farmer. I wanted to go with her, but my fear of being alone with him outweighed my wish to accompany her. I patted and hugged her as she sat in the car, and she, sensing my unhappiness, simply licked my hand.

As I stood and watched the car disappear I felt totally alone, all my friends had left. I knew that my mother also felt sad, but this time I felt little love for her, just dull resentment.

The day came when our few personal possessions were loaded into the car and, with me squashed into the back, we drove to the Belfast ferry. This would take us to Liverpool from where, after the twelve-hour crossing, we would continue our long journey to Kent. This time after the crossing, as we arrived at Liverpool, I felt no sense of excitement, just a dead sense of depression.

The next stage, on the long drive to Kent, I tried to read, but vivid pictures kept coming into my head. Sally looking at me, with her trusting brown eyes, as she went on her last journey. I could still feel the silky hair on her head when I had stroked it. I saw the ponies as they waited for me at the fence when I had said a last goodbye to them as I fed them their titbits. The feel and smell of them as I threw my arms around their necks for the last time still lingered. I saw faithful Bruno looking out of the window as he disappeared from view, and I missed Judy unbearably.

I looked at the back of my parents’ heads as we drove; my mother’s often turned towards him as she talked quietly. Occasionally she would turn to me, but I kept my book up to mask the feelings that I knew would have shown, feelings of resentment at my oncoming abandonment and anger at parting with my friends.

Every few hours we would stop by the roadside for sandwiches washed down by tea. I knew better than to refuse them, but I could feel the chewed lumps lodging in my throat. Only the liquid from the thermos seemed to give enough moisture for me to swallow.

At nightfall we finally pulled up outside a large grey house. The grass of its small front garden was unadorned by flowers. Instead there was a large sign advertising the fact that it had vacancies for bed and breakfast. This, my parents explained to me, was where we were to stay for the night before my mother took me to my godmother’s. After I had my supper, which the landlady served us in a small, bleak dining room, I went listlessly to bed. This was a put-you-up in my parents’ room, which I crawled into and fell instantly to sleep.

The following morning, after I’d washed and dressed, I had my breakfast in the same cheerless dining room, and then, with my mother holding my case, we left for the bus, with me trailing despondently behind her.

On the hour-long bus journey my mother kept up a one-sided conversation. Knowing her as I did, I recognized that her bright tones hid a nervousness. She told me that my godmother was looking forward to my visit. She asked me to be good. She reassured me that our separation would not be for long, and that I would be happy there.

Unbelieving, I sat and listened, giving little response, until gradually her bright chatter became stilled, finally stopping altogether. I felt my fate was the same as the dogs’. I was being re-homed. I could and would not understand why, when my parents were going to live such a short distance away, I could not be with them. As I sat on that bus I anticipated a dislike for my godmother and when we reached her house, I knew I was not going to be disappointed.

After the warm red bricks of Cooldaragh, the grey semi-detached house seemed completely cheerless. I looked with distaste at the tiny front garden with its dark pink
hydrangea bush planted in the small patch of dark soil. As my mother raised the iron knocker to announce our arrival, I glanced at the net-curtained windows that hid any view of the interior. I saw the one on the upstairs window twitch, but I couldn’t see the occupant. I heard footsteps descending the stairs, and then she opened the door and, with a thin smile, beckoned us in.

My grown-up self has learnt understanding and compassion. I now would have seen a lonely middle-aged woman with few social graces, who was unused to children. To my prejudiced child’s eyes, her tall bony frame looked witch-like. My opinion was formed.

My mother and I were seated in her austere sitting room, on her functional upright chairs with their pristine arm caps. A few minutes later the obligatory tea tray arrived, without which no adult conversation seemed able to take place.

As I balanced a small plate, on which sat a dry scone, on my knees, and awkwardly held my china cup, she and I appraised each other. Whereas I saw a witch, she, I am sure, saw a sullen unsmiling child, tall for her age and too thin. The antipathy I felt, I saw reflected in her eyes.

I listened to the two women talking about me, as though I was an inanimate object. For the first time I felt real resentment towards my mother as I sat in depressed silence.

How could she, I thought, leave me here?

I heard their conversation cease, could feel an awkward pause, broken by my godmother’s voice saying, ‘I’ll leave you two alone then, to say your goodbyes,’ as she abruptly rose to remove the tea tray.

My mother and I looked at each other warily as I waited for her to make the first move. Finally she opened her handbag, removed an envelope and handed it to me.

‘Antoinette,’ she said quietly, ‘I’ve got to go now. I’ve put some pocket money in here for you. It’s to last until I fetch you.’

I stood there, numb, as she gave me a quick hug before hurriedly leaving. When I heard the front door close I went to the window. Pulling the net curtain aside I watched her forlornly until she was out of sight. She never looked back

Anger and resentment consumed me. I missed Judy unbearably. At night tears oozed down my cheeks as I thought of the fate of the animals. I was being punished but I didn’t know what for. I hid my deep unhappiness behind a sullen face in the house and my godmother, with her lack of any experience of children, did not understand that the child before her was disturbed. She just saw a rebel.

Within my parents’ house my growing instability had not shown, for they acted as the lid, keeping the pressure in. There I was controlled, emotions were suppressed and behaviour programmed. Now, without those perimeters, my security had gone. An animal that has been trained through fear will revert to bad behaviour when the fear is removed. I was not a child who had been moulded with praise and affection, where confidence was encouraged to grow. I was a child whose night-times were wracked by nightmares and whose daytimes were confusing. A child who not only missed everything that was familiar, but was scared she had been left for ever. Never having been given the independence of being in control of my own emotions, I now felt even more insecure and any rules my godmother tried to enforce were resented.

My parents were my masters; my father controlled me with threats and my mother with her pained manipulation of my feelings. Now anger became the predominant emotion
that coursed through my body. Anger was my defence against unhappiness and my godmother became the target for it. She would look on helplessly as I, determined not to give her an inch, rebelled against every one of her commands.

‘Don’t run, Antoinette,’ she would say as we left church, so I ran. ‘Come home straight from school.’ I dawdled. ‘Eat your greens,’ and I would push my food around my plate until she excused me from the table and I was free to go to my room and read. She wrote to my mother saying I was unhappy and she thought it would be best if I went back to her. My mother, who I think had hoped my godmother would grow fond of me and want me to stay, arranged to collect me.

Later I found out that my godmother had felt such a failure in her childcare duties that she had blamed herself, not me, for my behaviour. The result of that was that she refrained from reporting my bad behaviour to my mother, thus saving me from punishment.

I was happy to leave the house, which I had felt was so cheerless. I couldn’t wait to wave goodbye to the old woman who I knew had never wanted or liked me. Maybe if I had been able to see into the future and had known what the next few years would bring I would have had second thoughts, but at eleven I knew nothing.

O
n the journey from Tenterden to Old Woking, which we made by bus and train, my mother told me about the house that she and my father had bought, and how she had decorated it.

In the 1950s, before patios became fashionable, houses had back yards where there was an outside lavatory, a washing line and, most probably, the husband’s bicycle leaning against the unpainted brick walls. However, my mother, who had loved the flowers at Cooldaragh, had seen a picture of a cottage in France and had tried to copy the exterior as much as possible.

She had painted the walls white, the doors and window frames blue. Not only were there window boxes at the front of the house, but also boxes had been firmly tied to the top of the walls surrounding the back yard, which she had filled with nasturtiums. She told me how their tumbling orange flowers contrasted vividly with the newly painted white walls.

The inside of the house, she told me, still needed to be decorated. Her idea was to remove all the wallpaper, paint the kitchen yellow and the rest of the house cream, whilst parquet lino would transform the downstairs floors.

As my mother explained every detail, I could see that she took an enormous delight in planning our new home, the first one they had managed to buy after nearly twelve years of marriage.

At the end of our journey, we walked a short distance to a street, where small, drab semi-detached and terraced houses came straight up to the pavement and not a hedge or bush broke the monotony. Our house stood out bravely with its freshly painted walls, the colourful window boxes and blue door, its brass knocker shining.

That evening when my father came home from work, we all ate supper together. Both of them seemed so happy to have me back that I took courage and told them my news.

‘I’m called Toni now.’

My godmother had told me that Toni was the correct abbreviation for Antoinette. Toni, I felt, was my name, the name of a girl who might be popular. Antoinette was someone else.

My mother smiled at me. ‘Well, it will be easier to put on your name tags when you start your new school.’

This was her way of voicing her acceptance.

My father made no comment and stubbornly refused to call me Toni until the day he died.

Over the weekend my father was working, so I helped my mother by stripping wallpaper. First I would soak it using a wet cloth. Then I would take the scraper and peel off long strips. I managed to completely strip the walls that Saturday. I felt close to my mother again. She kept telling me how useful I was being. We had afternoon tea together outside in our flower-filled yard where she answered my unspoken questions.

‘Your father is going to visit your grandparents in two weeks, then he will bring Judy back,’ she reassured me. ‘I’m
taking you to your new school on Monday, where you’ll meet your headmaster.’

I realized that this was not going to be a girls’ only school, which I had become used to again, but a mixed one.

‘What will I wear?’ I asked.

‘Oh,’ she answered, ‘the headmaster has given permission for you to wear your old school uniform until you outgrow it.’

My happiness at the news that Judy was coming disappeared. My heart sank, for yet again I was going to be dressed differently from the other children.

Sunday came and went too quickly for me. On Monday my mother took me to my new school. That morning, I carefully dressed in my green gym tunic, white shirt and green and black tie, knee-length grey socks, old lace-up shoes, and finally pulled on my green blazer.

When I arrived I shrivelled inside. In the playground were girls in grey skirts, white blouses and ankle socks, their feet enclosed in slip-on shoes. I could see clusters of children of my age playing, groups of teenagers talking together and my confidence plummeted. Armed only with my new name, I followed my mother into the building to meet my new headmaster.

Looking at my school reports, he asked me about my last two schools and what I had enjoyed most there. He questioned me on my hobbies, but how could I explain to him, a town dweller in England, what country life in Northern Ireland had been like? He took me to my classroom and introduced me to the teacher in charge. I saw not the black-gowned figure I was used to, but a large blonde woman with a pretty face. She told me she was taking the English class
that day. I was handed a book to read, which I had already studied in Northern Ireland. I realized even my favourite subject was going to be boring.

As class followed class that day I became increasingly despondent because the curriculum was so unfamiliar to me. Breaks came and went. The confident pre-teens in their casual uniforms seemed to be ignoring me. I must have seemed very strange to them in my gym tunic, with my long socks held up by garters, my hair parted neatly and held in place with a slide, whilst theirs was caught up in ponytails. I stood in the playground clutching my books, trying to will just one girl to speak to me.

Not one did.

That afternoon I walked home, watching the other children chattering in groups. To them I no doubt seemed aloof. I, with so few social graces, was an outsider.

At home my mother happily announced that she had found a job and, two weeks after I started school, my father went to Northern Ireland to visit his family and to bring Judy back. Over the next few weeks I learnt that I had to take an exam called the 11+, something I had been unaware of. The teachers gave me extra homework to bring me up to date with the English curriculum, but with only a few weeks to go I was having sleepless nights.

Although my father was indifferent to my education, my mother certainly seemed to want me to pass. The teachers were confident in me, but I was not so sure. I had mixed feelings over the next couple of weeks, wavering between excited anticipation of Judy’s return and dread of the approaching exam.

They both arrived. First, Judy, who shook with joy when she saw me. Although she now had no woods and fields to
search around in her quest for rabbits, she soon settled down to her life in the town and her walks on a lead, which I gave her three times a day.

I missed my old school and a lot of my life at Cooldaragh. It seemed that Judy was adapting better than I was.

Then the dreaded exam came; the papers were handed out in silence to the young pupils who all knew how important this day was. I knew I had done well in two of my papers, but the arithmetic seemed very different to me. I looked up despondently at my teacher, who was looking over my shoulder at my answers but said nothing.

After the bell went and all the papers were handed in, I felt despair, for I knew if I failed I would not get into grammar school and would have to stay in the senior section of this school for ever.

During the following few weeks, as I was waiting for the results of the exams, I saw little of my father, who seemed to be working all hours; or so my mother told me. I would come straight home, help with housework, then settle down to do my homework.

Then my father changed his shifts from daytime to nighttime. At the same time my mother started work. As the office where she worked was a bus journey away and my school only a few minutes walk away, she left the house before me. On the first morning of our new routine I had my breakfast quickly while a saucepan of water heated on the stove for me to take upstairs to my bedroom for my morning wash.

As only a minuscule landing separated my parents’ bedroom from mine, I tried to climb the stairs as quietly as I could so as not to wake my father, who on his return from his night shift had gone straight to bed.

I poured the water into an old china bowl, removed my nightdress, took my flannel and started soaping myself, noticing for the first time as I looked into the mirror that my body was beginning to change. Small breasts were forming on my previously flat chest. Still looking in the mirror I ran my hands over them, not sure if I really liked the changes. Then I saw another reflection.

My father, dressed only in his sweat-stained vest and underpants, had come out of his bedroom and squatted down on the floor outside my door, which he must have opened very quietly. With a smile on his face, he was just watching me. I could feel tremors of fear in my body as I tried to grab the towel to cover myself.

‘No, Antoinette,’ he instructed, ‘I want to watch you. Turn around.’

I did as I was told.

‘Now wash,’ he commanded.

As I obeyed him I felt a hot flush of shame spread across my face. Then he rose up, came over to me and turned me around to face the mirror.

‘Look in the mirror, Antoinette,’ he whispered.

While his hand stroked my small budding breasts, his breath rasped in my ear and his other hand slid downwards. Then he let me go.

‘You come straight home from school now. Bring me a nice cup of tea when you get in. Antoinette, do you hear me?’ He asked as I stood mutely looking at the floor.

‘Yes, Daddy,’ I whispered.

Then he left my room abruptly, giving me a wink as he went. Still trembling, I quickly dressed, brushed my hair and went downstairs to give Judy her morning walk before I left for school.

That day I was even quieter than usual at school, no longer being the first to put my hand up to answer the teacher’s questions, for I knew what was going to happen to me when I went home and made my father’s tea. When the bell rang at four o’clock, I slowly packed my satchel and walked home alone, ignoring my peers who were doing the same journey in small groups. But they, I knew, were going to be greeted by caring mothers, because ‘latch-key kids’ were not common until several years later.

Using my key, I let myself in and was greeted by an excited Judy, waiting for me, as she did every day, to take her for her walk. That day I could feel his presence upstairs even before he spoke.

‘Antoinette, is that you?’ he called down the stairs.

I answered that it was.

‘Well, make me a cup of tea and get yourself up here. Put that dog of yours in the back yard.’

I went through the routine of putting the kettle on the stove, warming the pot for a few minutes, putting the leaves in, letting it brew slowly, adding milk and sugar to the cup, all the time feeling his impatience and my mounting dread. Finally I could delay no longer. I put the teacup on a tray with two digestive biscuits and carried it up to him. As I entered the dark bedroom, where the curtains were drawn, he was lying in the bed that he shared with my mother. Once again I could smell his body odour and sense his excitement. I put the tray beside his bed.

‘Go take your gym slip off, and come back in here,’ he said as he picked up his cup of tea.

I came back in my vest, knickers, shoes and socks.

‘Take them off now,’ he instructed, pointing at my vest and school-uniform knickers. Then he lit a cigarette and
gave me that smile that I knew so well. Beside the bed was the jar of vaseline that was normally on the dressing table next to his hairbrush. He dipped the fingers of one hand into it while still puffing on his cigarette. I could feel the fear inside me, for I knew my mother would not be home for two hours, and I could sense that what had happened to me in Northern Ireland was going to be worse now. I knew that my changing body was exciting him more than my younger one had.

He pulled me onto the bed so I was sitting across his knees. Taking his fingers out of the jar, he roughly forced them into me. Then he got out of the bed and positioned me as he always had in the car all those years ago, legs dangling helplessly over the edge of the bed. He entered me more roughly than ever before. I could close my eyes, but not my ears.

‘You like this, Antoinette, don’t you?’ he whispered.

When I didn’t answer he pushed harder and my whole body went rigid with pain.

‘Now tell your Daddy you like it,’ he said as he took a final puff on his cigarette. ‘Say “Yes, Daddy, I like it”.’

I obeyed in a whisper. Then I felt that sticky substance dripping onto my thighs as, still holding the end of his cigarette, he spurted over me.

‘Now go and clean yourself up and tidy up downstairs before your mother comes home from work,’ he told me as he pushed me roughly off the bed.

I dressed in an old skirt and jumper, went down to the lavatory in the back yard and rubbed and rubbed myself with damp toilet paper, trying to remove the stickiness and the smell of him. Then I went inside to clean out the ashes left in the fire from the night before, laying a new one using
rolled-up newspaper and small pieces of wood to get it going. I brought coal from outside, washed up and, a few minutes before my mother was due, put the kettle on the stove so that she could have fresh tea waiting for her.